D&D General Matt Colville on adventure length
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Coming into this conversation 9 pages in, so maybe this has been suggested already, but I feel like the ideal compromise solution would be books focused on a largish geographical area and include a bunch of small, self-contained adventures you can run within that area, spanning a wide level range. That would have the same consumer value proposition as an “Epic” or Adventure Path, as a single product that you could theoretically get a multi-year, 1st-to-Xth level campaign out of. But, since the adventures work standalone, the DM wouldn’t need to read and prep all of them in advance, and there wouldn’t be a grand overarching narrative for players to be disappointed if they don’t finish. I’d suggest calling such a book a “campaign setting,” but that term already means something else.
There are a few 5e modules I can think of that do actually follow this formula - most notably Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak, but they are usually restricted to low level ranges.
Hmm, talking about it has made me want to get back into that Building a Phandbox project idea…
There are a few 5e modules I can think of that do actually follow this formula - most notably Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak, but they are usually restricted to low level ranges.
Hmm, talking about it has made me want to get back into that Building a Phandbox project idea…
Last edited:
Paul Farquhar
Legend
I agree with Colville, modules are much better, and far less likely to feel like railroads.
However, the economics say you simply can’t make a profit printing modules these days. They are simply too expensive to produce.
The only way to make modules profitable is online only.
However, the economics say you simply can’t make a profit printing modules these days. They are simply too expensive to produce.
The only way to make modules profitable is online only.
Yeah, print-on-demand and PDFs seem to be the way to go. Creators have to charge a decent chunk of change for PoD but some folk like myself value hard copies. I guess the little indies put out high-quality books in smaller numbers, but I don't know the particulars of ordering those sewn-binding nice books.
Ondath
Hero
I guess we'll have to see what kind of adventures he produces for the MCDMRPG when that comes out!
GrimCo
Adventurer
Watched the video. I'll prefix this by saying that i don't really run published adventures and most of DMs that i played with don't run them either. What I and people i know do, is pluck material from them and blend it in our homebrew games. Also, i buy phyisical books these days mostly for art and as reading material. So i like those Epics. Maybe i wont run full CoS as single campaign, but i'll cut it up and sprinkle pieces in my own stuff.
Those small modules work good in sandbox type of game where there is only loose overarching plot. But in more plot driven campaign i just don't see it. And to be fair, i know that those big adventures take time to complete. But experienced dm can trim some fat and speed them up.
I like tv paralell he used. Big adventures are like modern tv shows on streaming services where you need to watch episodes in order and plot spreads over entire or multiple seasons. Old modules were more like old tv shows, every episode is self contained story. Some people prefer to binge whole seasson. Some like more flavour of the week.
Those small modules work good in sandbox type of game where there is only loose overarching plot. But in more plot driven campaign i just don't see it. And to be fair, i know that those big adventures take time to complete. But experienced dm can trim some fat and speed them up.
I like tv paralell he used. Big adventures are like modern tv shows on streaming services where you need to watch episodes in order and plot spreads over entire or multiple seasons. Old modules were more like old tv shows, every episode is self contained story. Some people prefer to binge whole seasson. Some like more flavour of the week.
Argyle King
Legend
I feel like there's room for modular modules, that are produced in batches that can (optionally) connect to each other in multiple ways.
Let's say for sake of example that 3 adventures for levels 1-3 are created for Batch A.
Individually, A1, A2, and A3 can be played as self-contained adventures. However, there would also be a few sidebars (and perhaps 2-3 pages in an index) to explain how A1 might connect to either A2 or A3.
Let's say for sake of example that 3 adventures for levels 1-3 are created for Batch A.
Individually, A1, A2, and A3 can be played as self-contained adventures. However, there would also be a few sidebars (and perhaps 2-3 pages in an index) to explain how A1 might connect to either A2 or A3.
From what I can tell, Pathfinder Society adventures are really short, designed to fit into 4 hours, and each "season" has a metaplot that some of the scenarios advance but others are "stand alone". I like the metaplot of season 8, so decided to buy the ones that were linked to it, for a possible home campaign, but not the other ones. However it can be hard to tell from the descriptions which ones are unrelated to the metaplot.
So if you play Pathfinder, there are dozens of very short adventures available from Paizo, albeit designed for organised play (so if you are using them at home you get some extraneous stuff). They often seem to start with "a friendly wizard teleports you to the exotic location where the adventure is taking place".
My group seem to like epic campaigns, but I own lots of shorter adventures that I also want to run, so I plug those in at appropriate points, either replacing existing material that doesn't grab me, or making the epic even longer.
My current campaign is a home-brew "epic" with an underwater theme, but so far I've included , the Monstrous Arcana Sahuagin trilogy (heavily re-written so it's not a massive railroad), War Rafts of Kron, Raging Swan's Sunken Pyramid, Temple of Poseidon (a very old adventure from Dragon magazine #46) and Paizo's Feast of Dust (switched from the desert to under the sea). I was also prepared to run the DCC adventure (for 3.5, not the DCC RPG) Bloody Jack's Gold but the PCs never got round to following the treasure map they found.
So if you play Pathfinder, there are dozens of very short adventures available from Paizo, albeit designed for organised play (so if you are using them at home you get some extraneous stuff). They often seem to start with "a friendly wizard teleports you to the exotic location where the adventure is taking place".
My group seem to like epic campaigns, but I own lots of shorter adventures that I also want to run, so I plug those in at appropriate points, either replacing existing material that doesn't grab me, or making the epic even longer.
My current campaign is a home-brew "epic" with an underwater theme, but so far I've included , the Monstrous Arcana Sahuagin trilogy (heavily re-written so it's not a massive railroad), War Rafts of Kron, Raging Swan's Sunken Pyramid, Temple of Poseidon (a very old adventure from Dragon magazine #46) and Paizo's Feast of Dust (switched from the desert to under the sea). I was also prepared to run the DCC adventure (for 3.5, not the DCC RPG) Bloody Jack's Gold but the PCs never got round to following the treasure map they found.
I think Matt makes good points and as others have pointed out, those sorts of adventures are commercially hard to make successful. Robert Schwab talked about this difficulty as he publishes dozens of short adventures in PDF for Shadow of the Demon Lord. They’re a loss leader for him as he states it.
I’m bothered by the idea that big hardcover adventures are the “default”. This falls into the same problem as a lot of TTRPG opinions that we must all worry about the poor silent majority out there who don’t know enough to find the tens of thousands of short 5e adventures that exist. It’s like we assume only we, the enlightened, have access to Google and YouTube. These poor souls live in caves where the local market only sells WOTC hardcover adventures and thus only WOTC can save them.
I argue there is no “default”. Any RPG hobbyist who is even moderately interested in D&D likely watches some YouTube videos or reads Reddit and recognizes that there’s tons of material they can pick up for just about any format of play.
Something, like Curse of Strahd, being popular doesn’t make it the default. People are smarter than we give them credit for. They’ll pick up the products that best serve them.
Instead of hemming and hawing about “default” adventures being too long, why not showcase excellent shorter adventures being published now like those from Arcane Library, Raging Swan Press, Jeff Stevens Games, or dozens of other publishers? Why keep waving around an adventure from forty five years ago?
Each of us gets to decide what our own default is. Let’s stop pretending WOTC is in charge of what we decide to bring to our table.
I’m bothered by the idea that big hardcover adventures are the “default”. This falls into the same problem as a lot of TTRPG opinions that we must all worry about the poor silent majority out there who don’t know enough to find the tens of thousands of short 5e adventures that exist. It’s like we assume only we, the enlightened, have access to Google and YouTube. These poor souls live in caves where the local market only sells WOTC hardcover adventures and thus only WOTC can save them.
I argue there is no “default”. Any RPG hobbyist who is even moderately interested in D&D likely watches some YouTube videos or reads Reddit and recognizes that there’s tons of material they can pick up for just about any format of play.
Something, like Curse of Strahd, being popular doesn’t make it the default. People are smarter than we give them credit for. They’ll pick up the products that best serve them.
Instead of hemming and hawing about “default” adventures being too long, why not showcase excellent shorter adventures being published now like those from Arcane Library, Raging Swan Press, Jeff Stevens Games, or dozens of other publishers? Why keep waving around an adventure from forty five years ago?
Each of us gets to decide what our own default is. Let’s stop pretending WOTC is in charge of what we decide to bring to our table.
I like this idea in theory, but I think it might work better as a series of smaller products set in different areas aimed at different tiers of play. So you start by dealing with the problems around Phandelver in the apprentice tier, then move on to Waterdeep for the heroic tier, and so on. This reminds me of WoW where each zone has its own storyline and side quests – the Defias Brotherhood in Westfall, some necromancer Frankensteining it up in Duskwood, and so on. But that might feel a little too artificial.
Similar Threads
